


now i know there is no other

by luminaryhowell



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: (Ish) - Freeform, Angst, Depression, Dialogue, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, it's 2009 btw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-31
Updated: 2018-01-31
Packaged: 2019-03-11 21:07:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13532568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luminaryhowell/pseuds/luminaryhowell
Summary: He waits. He hears more crinkling of sheets, a sniffle, silence that drags on, a deep breath that teeters. Finally, Dan says, so quiet Phil has to hold his breath, “I can’t feel anything.”or, the early days of dan's depression.





	now i know there is no other

When Phil picks up the phone, there’s an unnerving absence of sound before Dan speaks. 

“Hey, Phil.”

Static grumbles on the line. His voice is distorted and weak as it comes through the speaker. Phil frowns, pushes himself up on his elbows and presses the device closer to his ear. Though his eyes are half-blind with grogginess and gunk, he can see the time blaring white on his clock – 2:47 am.

“Dan? Why are you awake?” he mumbles. 

“Oh. Shit. I forgot you sleep at normal hours.”

His words sound hollow. Not like Dan at all. Phil wipes his eyes with the heel of his hand. “Since when did you consider me normal?”

There’s another pause; Dan doesn’t laugh. “When I realised there’s a difference between not normal and fucked up,” he answers, quiet. 

“What?”

“Um, fuck.” Sheets rustle on Dan’s end. “Don’t worry about it. Go to back to sleep – I’m sorry I woke you.”

“But–”

“What was I even…? God. It was a bad idea to call anyway.”

“Dan?”

“What?”

“Is something wrong?”

Dan stops, breathing faintly. Phil’s eyes adjust to the darkness of his room in time with the twinge of worry in his chest. He grips the edge of his duvet a little harder. Dan barely calls this late, and when he does, he never sounds so…bleak.

“I don’t know,” Dan says eventually.

Phil frowns. “Well – maybe you’re sick? Did you eat dinner?”

“Do two bites of casserole count?” Dan’s laugh stumbles through the speaker, collapsing half-way.

In Phil’s chest, the twinge turns into a thud. He hopes this isn’t serious. He’s not used to this version of the boy he feels he’s known for a lifetime. Phil glances to the side, and remembers Dan’s grin when he demolished him at Mario Kart, and the dimple that showed when he tried to hide it. He remembers listening to Dan’s avid rants about Muse’s _The Resistance_ , lying next to him and watching his fingers move with his words. Suddenly his bed feels too wide, too vacant. Too Dan-less.

“…doesn’t matter, really,” Dan is saying, bitter. “I’m just being stupid, as usual. I’ll be fine tomorrow.”

Phil crosses his legs on the mattress, biting his cheek. “What if you eat something now?”

“No, I don’t really – feel like moving.”

“Oh.” A beat. “Could you try?”

Dan’s reply is muffled, as if his face is buried in his pillow. But the hurt is unmissable. “No, you don’t get it. I _can’t_ move. I just feel – heavy. It’s hard to explain.”

“I’m listening.”

“You – god, why are you so nice to me, Phil? It’s the middle of night. Tell me to fuck off and let you sleep.”

An ache seeps down to Phil’s toes. “Never,” he says. And then, softer: “Please talk to me, if it’ll help.”

He waits. He hears more crinkling of sheets, a sniffle, silence that drags on, a deep breath that teeters. Finally, Dan says, so quiet Phil has to hold his breath, “I can’t feel anything.” He hesitates, maybe thinking, maybe expecting Phil to ridicule him. 

“What do you mean?” Phil says instead, urging him to keep talking, and Dan’s emotions burst as if from a blister lurking on his skin for too long. 

“I mean – I mean I literally can’t feel anything, Phil. The past few nights I haven’t slept at all because I’m just so empty and – and it’s like I’m not connected to my body, like I’m outside of it. I’m not real. I don’t feel real. And today my parents – fuck.” He gulps down the thickness in his throat. “My parents said this shit about university and how I’m supposed to, ‘get off my useless ass’ and ‘stop fucking around with my life,’ as if they have any idea how much their expectations screw with my head and make everything worse. I just feel so small and stupid and everything is so big when it’s dark in my room and all I can think about is how _impossible_ it all is.”

He almost feels guilty for it, but Phil’s eyes burn with tears when Dan finishes. His mouth hangs open, trying to suck up the right words to say. He waits too long.

“Yeah, see, I knew you wouldn’t understand,” Dan murmurs. “Now I sound like a massive idiot. I’m gonna hang up so you can—”

“It’s not impossible,” Phil blurts.

“What?”

“I mean, it’s only as impossible as you make it out to be. I don’t really know what you’re going through, you’re right. But I know it’s just…everything you’ve forced yourself to believe, up in your brain. It sounds overwhelming, but all that stuff you’re feeling can go away if you’re brave enough to fight it. Parents included. Because you’re not stupid. I know you, Dan, you’re – incredible. And you are brave enough. Really brave.”

There’s quiet on the other end.

“Dan?”

Dan lets out an exasperated sigh, but it’s crackly and wet and thick with emotion. “Dammit, Phil,” he whispers. “I don’t deserve you.”

Phil shakes his head against the phone. “You deserve everything.”

They don’t speak after that. Phil closes his eyes and listens to Dan’s breathing. Two hundred miles away, covers pulled to his chin and tears on his cheeks, Dan repeats those three words in his head and lets himself smile, just a little.

In that moment, back in Manchester, clouds drift away from the moon and it peers in through the slats of Phil’s blinds, landing on the space beside him. And maybe he realises it now, or next month when he hugs Dan at Christmas time, or years later when Dan is always within arms’ reach – but he knows, somewhere in his mind, he’ll be with this staggering spiral of a boy for as long as Dan will have him.

**Author's Note:**

> this was short, and unedited, but i finally wrote something whip dab. follow me on everything if you want: @luminaryhowell


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